The Ties That Bind
by AngelXofXAnarchy
Summary: Jax decides to go Nomad, but not before he gets advice from an old friend. Jax/OFC. "Everything about her was wind whipped and road worn. Even her eyes held the weariness of someone who had been gone too long from home."


**The Ties That Bind**

_Jax decides to go Nomad, but not before he gets advice from an old friend._ Jax/OFC.

One-Shot

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><p>If she did have a home, this wouldn't be it.<p>

Despite all of the years she had spent in Charming, the comforting familiarity had long ago faded away. When the ties the bound her unraveled and left her with only loosened threads. When the world she knew came tumbling down. When the future she thought she had was no longer an option, she left.

But she wasn't one of those people who left as soon as she could. No, it was three years after she finished school; after prospecting for a year following that, that she told the club that she would be going Nomad.

And now she was back, sitting on the edge of a half broken mattress in Jackson Teller's old club house room, silently smoking a cigarette as the man watched her in the same contemplative quiet. Jax smiled to himself. He could almost swear that those black boots were the same ones she left town wearing all those years ago, but now they were all scuffed toes and beaten soles. Her jeans were frayed and faded, knees poking through where the fabric used to be. Her cut was weathered, the dirty leather holding so many patches that the man thought it looked like a girl scout vest. He ran his eyes over a few of them: Men of Mayhem, Brother's Keepers, She-Reapers, Thoroughbreds, and the most haggard on her cut, Nomads.

The woman caught where his gaze landed and she sighed. "I've thought about it once - settlin' down."

His interest was piqued and he lifted his eyes to catch hers. "Yeah? What stopped you?"

"I came to my senses," she explained and let out a small, sad laugh. "What would I do? Be someone's ol' lady?" She couldn't look at the man as she said this, so instead she looked straight ahead, at the closed door infront of her and blew out a cloud of white smoke. "We both know that would never happen."

Jax stared at her as she removed her black cap, glancing at the words "Reaper Crew" stitched into the back with loosening threads and he couldn't decided whether the years have been good or bad to her, but that notion was nothing novel. She was always one torn between two things and a lifetime of this irresolution had made her tired. In fact, everything about her was wind whipped and road worn. Even her eyes held the weariness of someone who had been gone too long from home. But she was free, and he realized that that made up for everything else.

"I'm thinkin' about, ya know, goin' Nomad," Jax said. "Club's puttin' it up for a vote."

The woman turned her body towards him, bringing her knee up to sit on the bed between the biker and herself. "You don't know what you're askin'. It's a whole 'nother world out there, ain't nothin' like Charming."

"I know it," Jax replied, looking down at the dirty carpet as he ran his fingers through his hair. "That's what I need - to just get away from here."

"You can't run from your problems. It don't work like that."

Jax looked at her, almost angry. "Why not?" he asked. "You did."

"You don't know what the hell you're talkin' about, Jackson," she said as she leaned over to the man's desk and stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. "I ain't never run from nothin'."

"Oh, yeah? When you got back from the Reservation, somethin' changed. And you wouldn't tell nobody what was up. Wouldn't even tell me."

She shook her head and rubbed her hands on her jeans, her fingers restless when there was nothing to hold on to. "I was just a kid, Jax. My dad was dead, my mother wanted nothin' to do with me, and you were with Tara."

_Then Tara left, and _you_ were the one that had changed,_ she thought, but she held her tongue. The two didn't look at each other as they sat in silence, side by side at the end of the bed, their knees almost touching, and Jax pulling at a loose thread from his jeans. _Tara left, and I tried to be what you wanted. Tara left, and I had to realize that the only person who could heal your broken heart was yourself. _

"The vote was _unanimous_," she finally said. "You pushed me away." She turned her head to look at him, but he stood from the mattress and walked to the door. With one hand on the doorknob, he stopped, then glanced over his shoulder.

"No," he told her, "you'd been pullin' away long before you left. I just let you go."

She stood up quickly and put a hand on the door, shutting it close before he could open it all the way. He turned back towards the woman, caught between her and the wood behind him. Jax tried to step around her, but she placed her palms against his leather clad chest.

"Ok. I ran. I did," she said, a pleading quality in her voice that shocked even herself. "And that's how I know. Ghosts follow you, don't matter how far you ride, how fast you go. They follow you. Always. I just don't want that for _you_, Jax."

The man put his hands over hers, keeping them against his own chest and he leaned down closer to her. "What do you want for me?" he whispered.

"A home," the woman replied. "A family. I want you to be happy."

"And, on the road, you're not happy?"

She sighed and tried to look down, but Jax's hand softly caught her chin so that she would look back up at him. But she only stared, not quite sure of what to say, because, honestly, when she was on the road was the _only_ time she was happy. When all she had to think about was the long highway in front of her and not what was behind. And now, here, she was happy, with Jax in front of her in the town she left behind so long ago. Back then, it had been so hard to unravel the threads, but once she did, she was gone.

And now, here, he was tying them back up again in pretty little bows.

"I'm happy, Jax," she said. "This is the only life I was meant for."

Jax grabbed the woman and held her close, clutching fistfuls of hair in his hands and burying his face in the crook of her neck. She smelt like fresh air and asphalt - like the wild and the road - and he wondered whether she had always smelt like that. She must have, this woman with a dual allegiance, half belonging to the Reservation and half belonging to the Sons, but always part of the highway that led her away from the small town.

"I have missed you _so much_," he whispered into her flesh. "And, Jesus, if you're happy, that's all that matters."

Jax pulled his lips from her neck and pressed his forehead against hers. The woman's grip on his cut tightened as she took him in, their breaths mingling in the scant space between them, and he softly tipped her head up and they were close, so close...

"TWO MINUTES!" a voice from outside yelled with a knock on the door and the pair jumped apart.

"I gotta go," she said, because Jax had Tara, and she still had that long stretch of open road in front of her that led away from Charming. _If she did have a home, this wouldn't be it... _so she placed her hand on his jaw, running the pad of her thumb across his stubbled cheek, and smiled. "Maybe I'll see you on the road, Jax."

"Maybe you will. After this run, where you headed?"

The woman swallowed hard and shrugged her shoulders. Where _was_ she headed? She didn't know. She only knew that she would be on the road again, the only place that made her happy besides where she was now. She was happy, yes, but always searching for the ties that would bind her to some place. Always searching. Always searching...

But she cloaked that longing in merit patches, black leather, and all the trappings of a woman who was concerned with the frivolty of neither a home nor stability. The road was her security, her bike, and her bag, and that's all that she needed.

_Where was she headed?_

"Wherever life takes me."

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><p><em>You sit and wonder just who's gonna stop the rain <em>  
><em> Who'll ease the sadness, who's gonna quiet the pain <em>  
><em> It's a long dark highway and a thin white line <em>  
><em> Connecting, baby, your heart to mine <em>  
><em> We're runnin' now but darlin' we will stand in time <em>  
><em> To face the ties that bind <em>  
><em> The ties that bind <em>  
><em> Now you can't break the ties that bind <em>  
><em> You can't forsake the ties that bind<em>

- Bruce Springsteen -

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><p><em><em>**Thank you for reading! I hope you liked it. I am actually planning a follow up story, so if I get a good response for this, I will start working on the longer fic. Please review! **


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